Overheard

Now you see her, now you don't

"We should have reacted and realized that excluding women from the Saudi Arabian version of the catalogue is in conflict with the IKEA Group values."

-- An IKEA spokesman apologizes for Photoshopping all the women out of this year's catalogue to appease Saudi Arabia.

Living memorial

"We are moving from lived memory to historical memory. We're at that transition, and this is sort of a brazen, in-your-face way of bridging it."

-- Michael Berenbaum, a Holocaust scholar, comments on the practice of young Israelis getting tattoos of the numbers their elders were branded with at Nazi camps.

Big is beautiful, deal with it

"You are working with a fat girl. Know it now and get over it."

-- Christina Aguilera lets her marketing people know she would not be starving herself to promote her latest album as she has for previous albums.

No end for men

"Fifty years ago, every male American was entitled to what the sociologist R. W. Connell called a "patriarchal dividend" -- a lifelong affirmative-action program for men."

-- Stephanie Coontz, an academic of family history, argues the end of men is not nigh -- as the book of that title argues. Women are just catching up.

A natural taint

"Tainted meat is the natural byproduct of a tainted government #PnP #cdnpoli"

-- Tweeter Danno comments on the tainted-meat scandal over the XL Foods plant in Alberta.

Hot time in St. B

"It went from black smoke to a fireball. It shot up so high... Then a huge heat wave went right over the car. We just felt instantly hot. People were running away. Honestly, we actually thought of abandoning the car and running, too."

-- Cassandra Brazil was sitting in a friend's car just 50 metres from the blaze at Speedway International in St. Boniface when a tanker truck of fuel exploded Monday.

Tough questions

"I don't understand why God let me live and not her."

-- Adebola Shoyoye, the Winnipeg man charged with criminal negligence causing death and criminal negligence causing bodily harm in relation to a vehicle driving into a hair salon last April. Kendall Wiebe, a 27-year-old mother, was killed in the crash, and another woman was injured.

Civic pride, Prairie style

"I love this town with a fiery passion that borders on irrational. I just happen to be entirely comfortable with the fact Winnipeg really doesn't matter much to the vast majority of people outside Winnipeg."

-- Bartley Kives, Winnipeg Free Press columnist

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 6, 2012 J2